40 Authors worldwide collaborate for charity with Words to Music: A Short Story Collection

_MCCALL, IDAHO-Words to Music: A Short Story Collection is available in print and on Amazon Kindle. The print version can be purchased here.The US Amazon version for Kindle can be purchased here.The UK Amazon version for Kindle can be purchased here.The DE Amazon version for Kindle can be purchased here.

The book contains more than 40 fiction and non-fiction short stories inspired by songs. The stories were written by authors from Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, United Kingdom and United States.

Writers from every hemisphere on Earth have contributed to this new book. The authors all met at the Harper Collins website for aspiring authors, http://www.authonomy.com during the years 2008-2010. In January 2010, Michael Wells, an author living in McCall, Idaho, presented the authors at the site with an opportunity to write a short story anthology with stories inspired by randomly generated songs. Many authors jumped at the chance and 40 authors stayed with the project to the end.

“I am still in awe of the opportunities our modern world presents us, should we choose to dream,” anthology publisher Michael Wells said. “Reaching across borders and cultures, our technology now allows us to work together in an open environment with people we never would have met only a few years ago.”

The 40 authors have also generously donated their royalties from the book to nine deserving charities worldwide.

After minimal publishing expenses are paid by the early royalties earned from the book, all the royalties will then go to nine charities on a revolving basis. Those charities include: C.A.R.E. USA, The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, Conservation International, Reading is Fundamental, Kiva, Catalyst, Inc., Operation USA and Riders for Health.

“It’s a rather diverse group of authors and stories in a book that is going to aid an eclectic group of charities,” Wells said. “I hope we can make some sort of difference in the lives of the people these charities help.”

Having 40 authors from 12 countries around the globe seemed like a daunting challenge to Wells when the project began in January 2010, but the authors all held a shared vision, he said.

“What I found most interesting with this process was the commonality among our authors,” Wells said. “Everyone seemed to be operating on the same page throughout the process, which was surprising considering the mix of people involved.”

Inspiration from the randomly generated songs worked well as most authors never flinched at their first offering. Some of the authors had stories ready for review within 48 hours, Wells said.

The process of creating a book was helped along by the creation of a website the authors used to communicate with each other.

Wells set up a website for the project and every author signed up and went to work at that website. A forum on the website allowed the authors to discuss various aspects of the process and share drafts of their stories. Then the authors split into several editing teams to review each other’s work over email, which helped the process along further.

“With any creative collaboration there were differences of opinion, but in the end we came up with a common denominator that worked,” Wells said. “I received a lot of feedback on my first story for the anthology (“The Penitent Man”) that I think helped make it much stronger than it was initially.”

Coming up with a cover for an anthology of this scope was an early problem that was solved when American author and artist Bradley Wind signed on to the project.

“Bradley’s artwork for the cover and his story are priceless contributions to this short story collection,” Wells said. “He’s incredibly talented and easy to work with.”

The United Kingdom supplied the most authors in the book with 14, 12 authors came from the United States, Australia had four authors, Japan two and one each from Finland, Canada, Ireland, Lebanon, South Africa, Spain, Germany and New Zealand.

“It was a gratifying experience getting to know these authors. Each and everyone of them have talents for storytelling that needs to be shared and this book hopefully will expose them to a vast reading public who one day will clamor for more,” Wells said. “That is my hope for each of the people who were involved in this process.”

I Shot Bigfoot & Other Stories available in print and Kindle

I Shot Bigfoot & Other Stories, the 2008 novella and short story combination, is available at Amazon in paperback or on Kindle.A famous dude shoots an even more famous legend. Will the mystery survive when it is dead in the back of a truck? When a famous author shoots Bigfoot while drunk on his porch, he forgets the old adage of shotgun, shovel and shut up. He is put on trial and the adventure begins. Along the way he learns there are some things people will not believe even if they see it with their own eyes. It is a complete novella with three other short stories. Set in Valley County, Idaho and the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, it is an adventurous romp about the beast who stomps.

Bigfoot Westerns: Stories by Michael Wells

_Michael Wells is an award winning journalist and photojournalist living in McCall, Idaho.On July 1, 2008, Michael published his first book I Shot Bigfoot & Other Stories.On January 24, 2011, Michael published the short story anthology Words to Music along with 40 other authors from 12 countries. You can buy the book here.

Western Short Stories by Michael Wells

__As an author, Michael has committed his work in two areas where he would
like to see a revival in the literary world. Michael is devoted to the
art of the short story and to the western genre. Here are a couple of examples of Michael's western short stories.The WrongedThe Promises We Make

Welcome to Bigfoot Westerns

_I have launched Bigfoot Westerns as a way to interact with my readers. My
favorite fiction authors are (and in no particular order), Elmore
Leonard, Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, Zane Grey, Max Brand, Stephen
King, Mark Twain, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Stan Lee, Cormac McCarthy and Kurt Vonnegut.While
I still hold those famous authors in a special place of reverence, I
have come to know a new generation of authors I have met along the way
who you need to take a chance on and read sometime. Some of my favorite
authors of today include Geoffrey Thorne, S.P. Miskowski, M.M. Bennetts,
Paul House, Heikki Hietala, Christy Jordan, Andrew Meek, Richard
Dowling, Matthew Dick, Greta Van der Rol, Jason Horger, Dan Holloway,
T.L. Tyson, Kay Christine Fenton, Robb Grindstaff, Pete Morin, Sandie M
Zand, Marcella O'Connor and there are many others who I hope to feature
here as well.Why Bigfoot Westerns for a name? Why not? My first book, published in 2008, was a novella and three short stories titled I Shot Bigfoot & Other Stories. It is a fun romp about the beast who stomps and I welcome you to sample some of the stories from that book on this website.

I
have two goals as I continue to write fiction, I want to reestablish
the short story as a bona fide entertainment piece and to that end I
have worked with 40 authors from 12 countries to produce Words to Music,
a short-story anthology with more than 40 short stories published Jan.
24, 2011. Some of our most compelling stories are short stories.
Publishing houses have largely abandoned the art form and I disagree with them on that point.

Secondly,
westerns went out with John Wayne's lifespan, and that is a travesty. I
hope to be a part of those who help rebuild the once proud genre. I
hope to produce thought-provoking westerns. I also write stories in the
horror and crime genres as well as general fiction.I
want my fiction to be real, plausible and to exhibit all the range of
human emotion in an appropriate atmosphere whereby no one emotion gets
played so hard it is out-of-tune by the end. I don't see a lot of that
being green-lighted in today's world and that's why you have to suffer
me and my writing. Take a look around, feel free to read my stories. I
hope you like them. You may not, but it's not like I've got a gun to
your head forcing you to read. (I called down to legal, they said that
was a felony in most states). Anyway, enjoy yourself, that's one of the
reasons why people make things up for you to read.